Fluoroquinolone

Enrofloxacin (EFX) is a third generation Fluoroquinolone with a broad spectrum antibacterial activity. Enrofloxacin hydrochloride is 1-cyclopropyl-7-(4-ethylpiperazin-1-yl)-6-fluoro-4-oxo-1, 4-dihydroquinoline-3-carboxylic acid. A Sensitive, simple and rapid reverse phase high performance liquid chromatographic method was developed for the determination of Enrofloxacin (EFX) in tablet dosage form. The chromatographic separation was performed on a Kromasil C-18 column (250mm x 4.6 mm x 5µ) in isocratic mode using phosphate buffer pH 3:Methanol (40:60 v/v), pH adjusted to 3.0 using orthophosphoric acid as mobile phase at a flow rate of 1.0 ml/min with column temperature 30 OC. The quantification was performed at 280 nm. The method showed good linearity over the concentration range of 5-25 µg/ml with correlation coefficient r2 0.9996. LOD and LOQ was found to be 1.0 and 3.0. The developed RP HPLC method was applied to EFX in tablet dosage form and results were found to be in agreement with the label claim.

  Very limited clinical studies are available for Balofloxacin (Q-35), a new fluoroquinolone showing clinical effectiveness. Thus, a systematic review was carried out to assess the safety, efficacy and tolerability as an anti-infective agent using scientific databases (PubMed and Cochrane Library). Databases were screened using term “Balofloxacin” for available studies. The search strategy was developed according to Biondi-Zoccai with English language restriction and was set to Oct 2011. All randomized trials, comparative studies, controlled clinical trials and in-vitro/in-vivo studies showing efficacy on human clinical isolates were taken into account. Upon extensive search we found 36 and 12 studies in PubMed and Cochrane Library respectively. 7 studies including 4 free full text and 3 abstracts from PubMed database while 4 clinical trial abstracts from Cochrane Library were included for systematic review. A single randomized controlled trial (RCT) was found through Cochrane Library showing comparison between balofloxacin 100 mg with levofloxacin 200 mg twice daily for 7 to 10 days. As far as its clinical effectiveness is concerned for urinary and respiratory tract infections, it is found to be equivalent to ofloxacin but the evidence in terms of RCTs is rarely available in scientific databases. Thus, we conclude that more RCTs are required to be conducted to proof its superiority in terms of efficacy and safety. Key Words: Fluoroquinolone, Anti-infective agent, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Randomized Controlled Trial